Analysis of Linear Antenna Array for minimum Side Lobe Level, Half Power Beamwidth, and Nulls control using PSO

Abstract This paper presents the optimization performance of non-uniform linear antenna array with optimized inter-element spacing and excitation amplitude using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). The aim of the proposed algorithm is to obtain the optimum values for inter-element spacing and excitation amplitude for a linear antenna array in a given radiation pattern with suppressed Side Lobe Level (SLL), minimum Half Power Beamwidth (HPBW), improved directivity and placement of nulls in the desired direction. A variety of design examples are considered and the obtained results using PSO are validated by benchmarking with results obtained using other nature-inspired meta-heuristic algorithms such as the Real-coded Genetic Algorithm (RGA) and the Biogeographic Based Optimization (BBO) algorithm. The comparative results are shown that optimization of linear antenna array using the PSO provides considerable enhancement in the SLL, the HPBW, the directivity and the null control in the desired direction.